Season inflates corgi's aspirations

It moves pollen from where it is made to where it is needed. It pushes clouds across the sky and pulls sailboats across the water. It wobbles kites, flutters flags.

And, when generated by people, wind has a limitless capacity to excite the corgi. Leaf blowers make the corgi's life especially difficult. You turn it on, it roars, it blows air and it makes leaves dance all over the place.

How is the corgi supposed to choose between subduing the noise and attending all those wonderfully wayward leaves that need to be herded back into order?

Chasing leaves is so much fun; but biting the blower nozzle puffs out the cheeks and sleeks back the ears, a euphoria far better than a head out a car window at 65 miles an hour.

During one particularly gratifying walk to the neighborhood park, we encountered a maintenance person running the Saturn rocket version of leaf blowers.

Had the corgi actually been able to mouth the nozzle, he would have inflated like the Goodyear blimp. As it was, the thrust threatened to toss him like just another leaf.

Speaking of getting inflated, 'tis the season for inflatable lawn ornaments, a subject that has thoroughly captured the corgi's interest.

A house one street over from us has a front lawn with a small platoon of inflatable figures. The corgi, of course, has noticed them. Every single Santa Claus and snowman of them.

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Our first walk by, the corgi looked at each one in turn like Sherlock Holmes sizing up a new acquaintance. Our second walk by was windy and far more eventful. The wind made one particular snowman bend and weave, bend and bob and bow like a drunken sailor.

The inflatables just rocking in the wind were exciting enough, but the dancing one was beyond all tolerability. Something had to be done, and the corgi was the one who needed to do it.

But what, exactly, does a corgi do with an inflatable snowman frolicking like a drunken sailor riding a bull at a rodeo? Especially considering the size difference: it was a Jack and giant episode without any beanstalk.

So there we were. Me, the corgi and a giant drunken snowman sailor riding a giant bull.

Well, all a corgi can do is try.

The snowman bowed a little this way and the corgi chased it that way. The snowman straightened up and the corgi leaped into the air. The snowman bobbed a bit that way, and the corgi was right there with it, the whole amplified by lots of loud, animated, scolding barking.

All else failing, the corgi tried his best chest bump. Best as it was, it wasn't best enough.

Being partially inflated, the snowman acted like a giant inflatable pillow in a kids' jump house. The corgi thrust himself chest-first into the snowman, the snowman flexed with the impact then reacted by ejecting the corgi as if he were a clown shot from a circus cannon.

The corgi did a complete somersault in midair, landed on all four feet, snorted and woofed then turned and strutted away in complete confidence that he and not the half-giant, half-circus clown bull-riding drunken sailor inflatable snowman had won that contest.

A week later, we walk within view of that ungainly inflatable snowman at least twice a day. The corgi holds his chin up and utters a single guttural "Oof!" meaning that battle won, he's looking for his next adventure.

Kevin J. Cook is a freelance writer and naturalist based in Loveland. His Wildlife Window column appears in the Reporter-Herald every Thursday.